مجله فلسفه و کلام اسلامی
سال چهل و پنجم شماره 2 (پاییز و زمستان 1391)

The logical treatise Al-muhja has been attributed to Avicenna in some bibliographies of logical treatises. Since a proper understanding of the development of Avicennian Logic rests on the identification and consideration of the entire corpus of his logical works, the task of the present study is to investigate the validity of ascription of this treatise to Avicenna. In carrying out an analysis of each treatise attributed to its author, viz., the investigation of manuscripts, supporting historical documents, structural analysis, and content-scrutiny, one may derive scholarly benefit. Supporting historical documents and manuscripts of Al-muhja that might indicate whether or not it belongs to Avicenna are unconvincing. In light of the analysis of its structure, this work does not belong to the styles of any established mode of logical studies and what’s more, even after considering the developments of Avicennian Logic – that the Grand Master composed treatises belonging to the category of ‘nine-fold division of logic’ and pioneered the category of ‘bipartite division of logic’ – this work seems to be out of place. In the case of contents-scrutiny, taking into consideration those ‘words’ that are non-existent in his other logical treatises, logical errors, and instances of variances that this work has with the other known works of Avicenna, all ascertain the hypothesis of the nonattribution of Al-muhja to Avicenna.

The present article begins with an articulation of the significance and relation of ‘query and response’ with both dialogue and its semantic perimeters and discloses the sourcesof Rumi’s thinking about this issue. After this taking a comparative stance, this article briefly explores the background and the significance of query and response, dialogue and dialectic as they relate to both ontological and epistemological domains in the view of Greek philosophers, contemporary intellectuals and in particular, the worldview of Rumi and then using the analytic method it deals with the criticism and analysis of the method of query and response with three different approaches: 1) origin, essence and necessity of query and response 2) motivation of query and response 3) compatibility and coherence in the course of query and response from the viewpoint of Rumi with the consideration of appended themes and consideration of thought(or the process of thinking) as a source of queryand response; allusion to meanings with the consideration that its variation exists at different levels; examination of Rumi’s refutations of the ‘theoretical reason’(ratiō) in spite of his emphasis on the necessity and usefulness of reasoning and logical enquiries; demonstration of the difficulty of traversing the philosopher’s way; criticism of the true dialogue as far as its ultimacy is concerned; aims and motivations of the questioner/asker; and in the end, the need for coherence and proportionality in the process of query and response in various domains and for a variety of relations.

According to Mathnawi (the mystical Mathnawi), selfalienation (or loss of one’s nerve) sets in as soon as one’s self-consciousness begins to wane as Mathnawi defines a human being with respect to his/her consciousness. The basis of a man’s perception of the immediate world, values and behaviour lies in his self-conception (the way he imagines himself); consequently, if his self-conception is flawed and not in conformity with his real self his values, perceptions, affections will be flawed as well. The morbid behavioural disorders such as egotism, vanity, fameseeking and wishful desires emanate from incorrect selfconception. In Rumi’s account, this fall and metamorphosis of man may be termed as a boundary situation which might unravel the strata of his inner beings and draw his attention to real self. In addition to these situations, meditation upon death or confronting the theme of death in one’s mind too can produce such worrisome image of man so that he comes to realize his real self and the core values therein.

The present study seeks to explain and analyse some of the fundamentals of Hick’s discussion of the problem of evil or theodicy. In this study, while analysing John Hick’s solution to the problem of the existence of evil in the world, we will see that he begins his exposition of the discussion of theodicy by interpreting the notion of primordial fall (and sin) as a myth and opines that moral evils results from the existential requisites of epistemic distance and free will in man. In his opinion, the acquisition of virtues and perfection soul cannot be attained except through confronting evils. In order to workout his solution to theodicy Hick resorts to some of the important elements in his theology, viz. the themes of eschatology, purgatory, and successive lives after death. However, the theological foundation of Hick’s theory implies false consequences stemming from the fact that propositions of the Sacred Book play no role in the generation of faith in God and the manipulation of ‘pluralism’ in religious concepts cause ambiguity to our apprehension of the debate about the problem of evil. In his discussion of ‘pluralism of salvation,’ Hick has selected those verses that are in conformity with the universal vision of salvation of the world while he has ignored those verses that point to the eternal punishment hell.

Quantum theory poses itself to be a challenging counterpart to the Intelligent Design argument. Quantum physics founded upon uncertainty, probability and statistics has exerted great influence since its inception on the philosophical thinking of man. The findings of this theory has helped bring about a dramatic transformation in the notion of ‘order in nature.’ In modern physics, it is hardly possible to draw a line of demarcation between the subject and the object and some believe that ‘thingness’ of a quantum particle is determined by an observer’s specific point of observation (the observer’s bias). And as the Uncertainty Principle states one can only compute probabilities for the future events and thus, it appears that there are no fixed or stable laws in the atomic and the subatomic world. In this research, different notions and interpretations of quantum theory and the effect of Uncertainty Principle on the Intelligent Design argument are evaluated and assuming the soundness of this principle of physics, the theory of God has been defended in which God is posited as the Ultimate Determinator of all the quantum indeterminacy.

One of the most controversial issues in the history of church has been the debate about the ‘true nature’ of Christ and His function in Christianity. While the position of orthodox Christianity regarding Christology revolves mainly around the divine-human nature (known as the two natures) of Christ, modern Christian theology with its scientific orientation approaches the traditional doctrines of Christ in a critical manner and often underscores the historicity of Christ’s personality. The response of the bulk of orthodox theologians in the face of all these criticisms have been to label ‘theology’ as being above and beyond all scientific and historical criticisms. However, Pannenberg is one of the contemporary theologians who has responded to these criticisms by a recourse to the method of historicism to solve theological matters. Pannenberg claims that his interpretation of traditional theology through a historical reading of it is justified since it leads to a proper understanding of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. Thus, Christology finds a central place in his corpus that endorses vision and historical manifestation of God as Christ and discusses various apocalyptic issues comprehensible only through the manifestation of Christ. In spite of Pannenberg’s interesting views as found in Christology which is based on a historical understanding of Christ, they were criticised by others.

Intellect is a fundamental topic of concern in the Peripatetic philosophy. A comparison of Al-Farabi’s approach to ‘intellect’ (an Iranian Muslim philosopher with an Oriental background) with that of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ (a Greek philosopher with an Occidental background) may reveal the contrasting features of Aristotelian Peripatetic philosophy and the Islamic philosophy. Basing itself on the methodology of comparative philosophy, this study carries out analysis and comparison of A Treatise on the Intellect of both Al-Farabi and Alexander Aphrodisias. According to Alexander Aphrodisias, intellect (in Aristotle’s On the Soul) is of three kinds: intellectus materialis, intellectus habitus, and intellectus agens and intellectus agens is the regulator of intellectus materialis. But according to Al-Farabi this intellect (intellectus agens) comprises three ranks: intellectus materialis, intellect in act and intellectus adeptus and it is the intellectus agens which radiates its light upon the cosmos containing world-souls and immaterial intellects. It seems that this classification of intellect was formulated for the first time by Al-Farabi. On the other hand, leaning on his Islamic beliefs and mystical inclinations Al-Farabi has identified intellectus agens (Active Intellect) with Gabriel and thus, made ‘union with Active Intellect’ acceptable in the view of Revelation and reckoned the effort and endeavour for this union with Active Intellect to be a spiritual-intellectual journey and considered the subsistence of this union after the extinction of body synonymous with eternal beatitude.

The present essay is a critical study of Zagzebski’s reading and criticism of Plantinga’s virtue-epistemology. Zagzebski, on the account of her definition of knowledge and the role that she assigns to ‘volition’ and ‘awareness’ in virtuous acts, along with her acceptance of the uniformity of moral and epistemic virtue, challenges Plantinga’s theory of Knowledge. Zagzebski believes that although Plantinga’s theory of Proper Function is better than Straight Reliabilism and that it is possible to interpret it in a way that is analogous to her own theory of Knowledge and even the fact that its calling virtueepistemology seems appropriate, yet taking into account Plantinga’s epistemological presuppositions and his mechanistic picture of the theory of Knowledge, his theory of Proper Function owing to its disregard for the elements of volition and awareness, in the final analysis, cannot be considered as a type of virtue-epistemology.